THE Blood Transfusion Service Board will today discuss claims that its pension funds have been depleted by payments to two executives who resigned after a 1995 report on the hepatitis C affair.
According to the Sunday Tribune, the BTSB accounts for show that the pension fund is 11 per cent underfunded, and contributions to it have now been increased from 10 to 19.79 per cent of payroll costs. This was necessary, according to the newspaper report, to "finance enhanced superannuation awards made to two former employees in 1995".
In 1995, an expert groups chaired by Dr Miriam Hederman O'Brien inquired into the infection of women with hepatitis C through blood products manufactured by the BTSB. In April that year, it reported that notification of the infection had been passed on to the BTSB by Middlesex hospital in December, 1991, over two years before any action was taken.
The chief medical consultant of the board, Dr Terry Walsh, to whom the notification was made, took early retirement.
The board's chief executive officer, Mr Ted Keyes, also retired at this time. However, in a statement at the time the board pointed out that his retirement was unrelated to the Hederman O'Brien report and the BTSB "has not requested Mr Keyes's early retirement", it said. "Mr Keyes was employed by the board in 1987 and was due to retire on March 1st, 1994. In February, 1994, when it became apparent that there was a possible link between the product Human Immunoglobulin - Anti D - and hepatitis C, he was requested to continue in office in order to help theboard and he agreed to do so until June 1st, 1995."
The statement went on to, point out, as the Hederman O Brien report found that Mr Keyes had no responsibility for the board's medical/scientific functions, had no medical qualifications and no knowledge of the letter from the Middlesex hospital in 1991.
A spokesman for the board said yesterday that the explanation for the underfunding was "other than that which has been given in the newspaper".